


An Exile, Foremost

by Solshine



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, M/M, sword and sorcery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-03 11:24:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2849195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solshine/pseuds/Solshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Queen Fantine's banished consort, Félix Tholomyès, has made another attack on her kingdom and another bid for her throne, fifteen years after the first... but this time, he succeeded. Now her knight Sir Valjean hides with the princess, and her captain Sir Javert tirelessly seeks them out--each knight convinced that they are fighting the battle for the kingdom alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tcwordsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tcwordsmith/gifts).



> Wow I'm... I'm not sure what this is. I swear it started out fitting the prompt I was given for the holiday exchange but it got away from me and a cute little idea for a funny Robin Hood AU turned into a full blown pseudo-Arthurian epic (that isn't particularly funny at all).I love comedies of errors too, and I've always wanted to write a elaborate misunderstanding so... I succeeded in at least that much?? There was no choice but to split it into chapters, but the later ones will be showing up soon, Santa willing. I hope you enjoy it!

”If you’ve had a moment, your Majesty, to read over the trade agreements I’ve drafted—”

The low drone of the evening council meeting was starting to run together in his ears, and Sir Valjean had to stifle a yawn as the minister of commerce handed yet another page to Queen Fantine. Almost everyone else in the room looked as bored as Valjean felt, except the minister of commerce, and Queen Fantine, her silk-wrapped head nodding wisely as the man carried on and on.

And, of course, Sir Javert, sitting ramrod straight at the queen’s side and looking… not interested, per se but at least as sternly attentive as ever. He always looked, Valjean reflected, as though he were constantly receiving bad news—or maybe preparing himself for it.

Javert must have felt Valjean’s eyes, because his gaze flicked suddenly up from the minister’s diatribe and met Valjean’s. He frowned. Valjean smiled at him, and the crease between Javert’s eyebrows deepened.

Valjean, amused, returned his eyes, if not his attention, to the proceedings, so that Javert wouldn’t have a sharp word for him afterward about insubordinacy or inattentiveness or something similar.

“I’m primarily concerned,” said the minister, “with last week’s addendum—”

The door to the council room flew open, and a guard rushed in, eyes wild, breathing hard. 

“It’s Tholomyès,” he said before the queen had even finished rising to her feet. “He’s come back.”

 

\---

 

Sir Javert barely glanced at Fantine as he leapt to his feet. Fantine was fierce and shrewd and had her own way of protecting herself. ( _Not against this,_ said a voice in his mind, but that wasn’t his job, she had her personal guard for that. His job was to protect the kingdom, not a gentle woman with just one chink in her armor and one vulnerable bruise in the center of her heart.) The calm meeting had erupted into chaos and noise, and Javert had to dodge too many shouting knights and confused courtiers to get to his hidden store of weapons in the cabinet in the corner.

(Fantine had laughed when he secreted them there. “We’re unlikely to mount a defense as we sit in at a meeting,” she said. But she had been young and foolish then. She was only less young now.)

He threw swords to Sir Blachevelle and Dame Favourite, and swept his eye over the room, the people shouting questions and orders at each other and scattering in search of weapons and support. Sounds of battle echoed distantly down stone hallways; the enemy was not at the gate, they were already inside.

The queen had been betrayed.

His eyes immediately fell across the room on Sir Valjean, just in time to see him slipping out of the room silently by a side door, in the opposite direction from the approaching enemy. Nobody else saw him. Nobody else would ever believe it, certainly not the queen, but Javert knew. He wished he were surprised.

The room had only become more chaotic as the battle became louder and closer, and as the castle guards from elsewhere cut through here on the way to the enemy. There was too much in his way for Javert to follow Valjean quickly, too much risk of other traitors being around for Javert to order him followed. He cut through the mass as quickly as he could, but by the time he had reached the dark quiet of the corridor, Sir Valjean was nowhere to be found. Javert followed anyway.

He didn’t need to consider where Valjean might be going. Somehow, he knew. 

There were two routes he knew of to the princess’s chambers. The whole way there Javert didn’t know if he had picked the wrong one, or he was just too far behind. “Valjean!” he shouted as he ran, the name echoing back to him off the stones. “Valjean!”  
Probably she would go with him without a question, probably she would trust his intentions wholly. She had not yet been born when Valjean had arrived in court as Tholomyès’s right hand. She had only been an infant when Tholomyès’s coup had failed and he’d been banished, along with all those loyal to him—except for his most honored knight, left behind in the heart of the royal court, just because Queen Fantine insisted everyone deserved a new life if they wanted it.

Cosette was a kind young fool, just like her mother. Even if Fantine had ever told her…

Javert, as he rushed back to the throne room, wondered grimly if Valjean would convince Cosette that Tholomyès, too, was merely a misguided man who deserved another chance.

 

\---

 

Valjean pounded on the painted wooden door with a clenched fist. “Cosette! Cosette! Princess!” he called, as loud as he dared for fear of drawing the attention of anyone else looking for her. He prayed she was in her room. She had to be in her room. The conservatory was two stair flights away and the library was on the other side of the castle. If she wasn’t in her room, there would be no time…

The door opened, and a surprised Cosette blinked up at Valjean. “Sir Jean? What—”

“Put on your dark cloak,” he said. And your riding shoes. And do up your hair. The castle is under attack, we have to go.”

She hesitated not a moment before disappearing back into her room. Valjean turned around and stood in the doorway, keeping watch, his heart hammering. “Where are we going?” asked Cosette from behid him as she quickly pulled on her sturdier shoes. “Won’t the throne keep them out?”

“The throne might not be able to keep these people out,” he said. “The queen will try to make it to the throne room, but in the meantime we need to get you to safety.”

Cosette fastened her cloak around her shoulders, took a deep, shuddery breath, and nodded. Valjean took her hand, and the two hurried silently down the stone corridor.

 

\---

 

Javert had hoped that perhaps the queen had made it to the throne, but as he approached the throne room he heard only rough, unfamiliar voices. Even expecting it as he was, Javert took a moment to recognize the voice that this castle had not heard for fifteen years.

“Report?”

“Still some fighting in the east wings, but the castle is ours.”

“The queen and the princess?”

“The queen had a meeting all morning in the council room with the knights and such,” came a wheedling voice unfortunately very familiar. The Lady Thénadier had been Cosette’s extremely unpleasant nursemaid when the girl was younger, and now filled the role of extremely unpleasant court gadabout. Her less unpleasant but equally shifty daughter was Cosette’s lady in waiting now. Or she had been, Javert thought with gritted teeth. In Tholomyès’s castle, she would probably be a duchess, thanks to her family’s treachery.  
“Well, what have we got here?” came a voice from behind him. It sounded insufferably proud of itself, and Javert was divided between gritting his teeth at its smugness and laughing at the thought that Msr. Thénadier, the most useless of the whole clan, could outsmart or overpower him, surprised from behind or not. Even the blade whose point he could now feel pressed against his lower back posed no threat, but he had no intention of fleeing.

Thénadier led him in on the tip of the knife with a loud “See who I found dropping eaves!” Every eye in the room turned to them instantly.

Tholomyès had aged poorly indeed, Javert noted. His man Valjean, eight years his senior, and with whitening hair, looked half the age of tis paunchy, jowly sinner with a sparse crop of yellowy hair combed over his pate. 

“Ah yes, Sir Javert,” he said. “You were her captain, weren’t you?” he asked. As though he had forgotten Javert at the head of the knights rounding up him and his men, drumming them out. Javert certainly remembered him, blazing eyes and damp forehead, as they marched him from the castle. “And the steward!” he added as if only just remembering. “Yes, the steward that dear Fantine named in case something were to happen to her before Cosette came of age. Rather than naming the girl’s father as some people might, but I suppose that’s a sovereign’s prerogative.” 

Tholomyès stroked a thready beard on his chin. “This is a bit of bad luck for you then, isn’t it?” he reflected. “All that loyalty and structure, all that careful rule-abiding, only for there to be a coup before you could ever be rewarded. You really waited too long, Sir Javert. Should have poisoned her while the princess was a tot and too young to ask questions.”

Javert said nothing. He did not say that it was not a coup, since Tholomyès neither lived nor belonged here. He did not say that of course Tholomyès remembered Javert’s role of steward, a title Javert himself had not thought of in years. He certainly did not say anything about Princess Cosette, afraid that if he dared to speak of her he would draw his sword against this blackguard and get that worm Thénadier’s knife in his back.

“Well,” said Tholomyès, his grin going wider and more wicked, “It doesn’t have to be bad luck for you.” He inspected his nails. “I will be in the market for a captain myself, especially as I finalize my claim to the kingdom at large.” He laughed. “I warn you, however, I am very difficult to kill. When you spend fifteen years putting yourself at the head of a bandit clan, you learn to watch your back.”

There was a great commotion from the corridor opposite, and shortly there entered a sneering man in tattered, once-rich clothes, dragging the queen, her arm twisted behind her back. She walked with as much dignity as the man would allow her, her silk-wrapped head held high.

“Bamatabois, what a prize you’ve brought me!” Tholomyès laughed. 

Bamatabois opened his mouth to deliver surely some disgusting boast, and in his moment of inattention Fantine bashed the back of her head into nose and turned sideways into his grip to scratch at his face.  
As soon as she made her move, another of Tholomyès lackeys rushed forward to grab her, only to be met by a flash of blue light. The man skidded backward across the polished stone floor as Fantine struggled with Bamatabois, but a moment later, though, Bamatabois had her again, an arm locked around her neck and a cruel looking knife poking at her side.

“I warned you she would fight,” said Tholomyès, sauntering over. “You haven’t changed at all, my dear. But where is all that beautiful hair of yours?” he asked. “You know how I always loved your hair.” He stepped forward and pulled the tightly wound silk scarf off her head. Her hair underneath was close shorn, soft and downy. “Gone!” Tholomyès exclaimed. “What a shame that is. Don’t worry,” he added with an oily smile. “I kept some from back in the day.” He pulled the collar of his shirt open, to reveal a thin black braided cord in which a few strands of golden hair gleamed. “A lover’s token, if you will. One I’ve shared with a few of my friends, like Bamatabois here.”

“You’ve no right to it,” Fantine spit.

“I’ve every right,” he snapped, but quickly calmed himself back to his usual unctuous, toothy amiability. “If you’d simply tell that magic of yours that we mean you no ill will, we wouldn’t be reduced to such things as sneaking in back doors and having talismans made.”

“My magic knew you meant me and my kingdom harm before even I did,” Fantine growled. “That’s the only reason you begged such a token of me.”

Tholomyès turned from her with a careless brushing motion, as if suddenly bored of the conversation, and returned his attention to Javert. “Where were we? I believe I was offering you a position in my new regime—one that will not require any dusty old bloodline magic to keep its place. So, Sir Javert, how will it be? I could use a man with some experience in the position.”

“As your captain of what?” Javert snorted. “This flock of lawless vultures treating the whole kingdom as a corpse to be picked?” He kept his tone as cool as possible and did not look at the queen. He must not look at the queen, her arm twisted behind her back and Batambois’s knife to her throat.He could hardly even look at Tholomyès, the wide gloating grin he had at Javert’s words.

“Who better to keep order?” Tholomyès asked, spreading his hands wide. Full authority to enforce the law of the land. You’re right, someone has to keep these dogs in line, they’ve been so long scavengers. Otherwise, who knows what terror and chaos this kingdom will become in a month’s time?”

Javert was a reasonable man, he felt, more prone to action than outburst or problem solving than emotional stewing. But as he looked back at Tholomyès, he found he could not manage a thought more productive than _I hate this man._

Tholomyès held out his hand, but not to be shaken. Javert steeled himself (for the weeks and months ahead, as much as for what he was about to do—who knew how long it would take him to find Valjean, to find the princess). He took three steps forward, knelt, and kissed Tholomyès’s ring.

 _One of these days, old man,_ he thought calmly, _I’ll cut it from your finger._

 

\---

 

Valjean stopped at last only when they were safely outside the city and into the woods. Valjean stood alert and scanned the trees around them as though he expected enemies to emerge from every shadow, while Cosette leaned against a tree and breathed as steadily as she could.

“Mother should have reached the throne room by now, shouldn’t she?” she asked after a long moment.

Valjean sighed. “Maybe, my dear.”

“I should have gone,” she said, tears rising to her eyes. “I should have tried to make it to the throne. I should go back, I could still stop this.” She stood upright, but before she ould take a step Valjean’s hand closed gently around her wrist.

“The castle was nearly overrun before we even knew it had been breached,” he said. “Either your mother gets to the throne or the throne room is already seized and you wouldn’t reach it either.” 

Cosette’s head dropped in defeat and Valjean’s hand moved from her wrist to her shoulder. “I will take you back to that throne, I promise. But not tonight. You know you aren’t strong enough yet, and until you can control the royal magic properly, it won’t do you any good.” 

“I know,” she choked out. “I should be able to. I’m sixteen, I should have—”

“Sssh,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, his sword still gripped tight in his hand as she huddled to his chest. “You’re still very much a child, my dear. It’s all right to still be a child. Nobody saw this coming and nobody blames you for not being able to stop it. We will take it all back, throne and castle and kingdom, but for right now we need to go. Can you keep going?”

Cosette nodded as she pulled reluctantly out of his embrace, wiping her eyes with her knuckles. She put her hand into his, and Valjean led them forward, deeper into the woods.

 

\---

 

“No sign of the princess yet, sir,” said an unshaven man, his shirt spattered with blood that Javert did not prefer to think about. “We’re thinking she might have heard the fighting and hidden. It’s a pretty big place.”

“Yes, thank you, I noticed that the castle is large,” Tholomyès said tightly. “However, if the girl is merely hidden, I expect that a troop of capable men like yourself will be able to suss her out before the night is up.” 

The man nodded uneasily and disappeared. Javert would laugh at the charade, if it were funny. Cosette could be no use to Tholomyès now, the fires from his attack still burning and the blood still wet on the floor, her mother in captivity, guarded by men wearing strands of her hair. Unless he intended merely to lock her up like her mother, then bullying the princess, frightening her, angering her would do him no good when she finally mastered her magic. 

The game was deeper than the blunt objects and loud noises that the highwaymen he led were so fond of. The game was one of love, or something near enough that there was no better word.

“You’re my new captain, aren’t you, Javert?” Tholomyès said. “Why don’t you direct this mob?” It was half a joke and half not, and Javert wondered if Tholomyès doubted him. Of course he doubted him. He was a monster, he wasn’t stupid. 

“I am, as I understand, here to enforce the law,” he said coolly. “The tossing and looting of a castle is outside of my realm of experience, I’m afraid.”

“Do you have any idea,” said Tholomyès, looking closely at him, “where she might be?”

 _She will be_ , Javert wanted to say, _in a cabin somewhere, with your mole of fifteen years. She loves him, because she is a fool just as her mother is a fool and neither of them realize that a liar is always a liar, a traitor is always a traitor, that you were always going to come back and try to claim again what was never yours, that Jean Valjean will always be a man with a hidden heart. She will be learning from someone she trusts that her father has returned, that her father always loved her. When the time comes, I am sure, you will “rescue” her, and by the time she knows her magic, she will be too much yours for you to ever have need of doing her ill._

Instead, he says “She may have left the castle at the sound of battle, my lord. I believe she was familiar with some of the servants’ passages and entrances. She could be well on her way, by now.”

A sharp expression of dismay crossed Tholomyès’s face, and he turned away from Javert. “We will search the castle first,” he said, and Javert had to smother his bitter smirk.

“Of course, my lord.”

 

\---

 

They stopped at last only as dawn was starting to break unseen outside of the dark forest. The house they had finally reached was nearly on the edge of the woods, but it was impossible to tell; the trees were no thinner here, and there still was no road, except for a faint path from the door of the house out in the opposite direction from which the two of them had come.

Valjean knocked on the door, first gently, and then again, harder. “Fauchelevent!” he called. “It’s Valjean!”

The door opened on a white haired man, who stepped aside to let Valjean in.

“Jean, what’s—” Cosette followed Valjean inside, and Fauchelevent’s expression went grave. “What’s happened?”

“The castle is overrun,” said Valjjean, sheathing his sword at last as he closed the door behind them. “When we could last see the castle there was no sign the queen had made it too the throne. I think we should assume the castle is taken. He glanced at Cosette, but her unhappy attention was closely on the two of them, and he was reluctant, somehow, to name her long absent father as the invader.

“Cosette,” he said instead. “This is my friend Monsieur Fauchelevent. Fauchelevent, may I introduce her royal highness, the princess Cosette.”

Despite her distress, Cosette held out her hand on reflex and dropped a small curtsey as Fauchelevent bent over it. “I am sorry,” he said, “that you had to come to my quiet home under such circumstances.”  
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Fauchelevent,” she said, and somehow she meant it sincerely. Valjean would never understand how she did that, held so much kindness and light in her.

“Pleasant or not,” Fauchelevent smiled, “I’m sure it has been exhausting. Why don’t you try to get some sleep, dear? There will be crises enough when you wake.” Cosette, her eyes shadowed with weariness as well as fear and worry, agreed readily.

Once she had curled up on Fauchelevent’s small bed and succumbed to an exhausted sleep, Valjean beckoned the other man outside. They sad on a wooden bench outside and watched the orangeing light filter down through the leaves for several minutes before Valjean finally spoke.

“It’s Tholomyès,” said Valjean very quietly. “The force that attacked the castle tonight. It was Felix Tholomyès.”

“The queen’s consort?” Fauchelevent exclaimed in surprise. “Where has that old villain been skulking and planning this all these years?”

Valjean shook his head. “On the borderlands somewhere, became some sort of small-time bandit lord out there, and it looked like he brought plenty of his serfs along with him tonight. Once the queen stripped him of his title and banished him and all, I suppose he had to have his power one way or another. Javert, the captain of the queen’s guard, kept a close eye on him, I believe, but he did his best to keep his findings from me.” Valjean’s mouth turned up at the corner in a wry, unbidden smirk. “He never trusted me very much.”

“And you haven’t told the princess,” said Fauchelevent.

“I don’t know whether to. Or how,” Valjean sighed. “I’m not sure how much Fantine ever told her about… him. She knows the part about the royal magic—her mother’s been teaching her for years now. She knows never to let anyone get a strand of her hair.” He laughed a sudden bit of brightness lightening the lines on his forehead. “She still goes about with it loose regardless.”

“But you don’t think she knows how her mother learned that?” Fauchelevent frowned.

Valjean rubbed his hand over his face. “I don’t know whether she does or not. She never asks about her father, or talks about him at all. Shouldn’t she? Children without a parent, don’t they ask?” His tone was lost and plaintive, and Fauchelevent smiled, eyes gentle. 

“You’re very close to the girl,” Fauchelevent observed. “I’ve never seen you with her before.”

“She’s been following me wherever I’d let her since she could walk,” said Valjean with a fond, quiet smile. “When she was six her mother gave me this charge, to take her and hide her if the castle was ever breached again. I don’t know if she was thinking of him, or… something else. Nobody else knows of it.” He rubbed his eyes with finger and thumb. “The question is, even if the queen told her about Tholomyès, I’m… I’m not sure how much she knows about me.”  
“What do you mean?”

“My former position,” Valjean sighed. “Serving her father.”

Fauchelevent shook his head. “That’s the past, Jean.”

“Javert never thought so,” Valjean said. “Sometimes I can’t tell if it’s more that he distrusts my newer allegiance to the queen, or that he’s disgusted by the breaking of my knight’s oath to her attempted usurper,” he chuckled.

“Whatever he thinks of you,” replied Fauchelevent, “the queen knows better, and I’m sure she’s taught the princess to know better as well.” The sun was truly up now, and Fauchelevent planted a friendly hand on Valjean’s shoulder. “I can tell you won’t be sleeping today, so would you like some tea and breakfast? I can make it quiet as a mouse, the princess will sleep right through it.”

Valjean smiled. “Thank you, my friend. I would appreciate some tea.”

Fauchelevent nodded and reentered the house, and Valjean remained on the bench, chin resting on his clasped hands, brow furrowed in thought.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I have been gone a whole year doing the following:  
> 1) being severely depressed for a while (that first chapter was the dying howl of my creativity and I'm still working at getting it back)  
> 2) between two jobs and going to truck school, working myself to the point of stress-induced illness/breakdowns three times  
> 3) graduating from truck school and getting a job as a truck driver, where I get an hour free time every day if I'm lucky 
> 
> And now I'm back! I have never abandoned a fic and this one is no different. I have to type it all out on my phone, though, and time and words are rare resources so... be patient. (I also want to rewrite chapter 1 because I really really hate it, but we'll see how that goes.)
> 
> Sorry I left y'all hanging. I missed making stories for you.

As the days wore on, things only got worse.  

For all that Tholomyes’s men, many abroad doing mischief, had had left behind in the castle more of a troupe than an army, they seemed to be everywhere, in every room, harassing the serving staff and pitching their filthy camps in every sacred space. Javert did his best to keep order, but his authority alone, though grudgingly obeyed by the men, was hardly enough to keep such a company in line. 

 It was only the second day when he found one of the men tossing the princess’s room. Javert laid him out flat with a punch to his jaw. It was an… uncharacteristic response from him, compared even with shouting or drawing is sword, but he stood over the man and flexed his hand, and reflected that it had not really made him feel better the way he’d thought it would. 

He fetched Toussaint, one of Cosette’s maids, to set the room to rights, and placed a guard on the door, promising grave consequences if the room were entered or anything touched. But in the end he had to walk away and hope it was enough. What else could he do? Nothing was really enough. He could stop thugs from going through the princess’s things, but he could do nothing about Tholomyes sleeping in the queen’s room, or the queen herself locked away in a tower room and guarded by men wearing talismans of her hair. And he had not yet been able to go searching for the princess or Valjean, he had been so occupied as the one force against the bandits’ cruelty and destruction. Javert wondered if perhaps that was Tholomyes’s idea. Javert was certain Tholomyes was testing him, or laughing at him, or both. He had upheld every order and punishment Javert issued, but he did nothing toward enforcing them himself. Javert was as alone in his work as in his efforts; the rest of Fantine’s knights and officers were imprisoned now, or dead, or defectors (with apparently more sincerity than himself). There was no good way for Javert to free the prisoners, or free the queen, with nobody but himself to do it.  

 He at last had his Sisyphean work taken out of his hands for a day when Tholomyes gave him an assignment. 

“I have some men coming into the city from the east,” he said. Javert knew exactly where he meant—an unfriendly country bordered theirs nearby, and reports had placed Tholomyes and his brigands there these many years. “I would like you to go out as far as the border guard and escort them in.”

Javert could hardly imagine either a gang of highwaymen or an army, if that was what Tholomyes was bringing into the kingdom, that would need an escort. 

“As you wish,” he said nonetheless. He still could not quite bring himself to say “Very good.” 

.....

As the days wore on, Valjean let himself relax. Fauchelevent brought back news from the nearby village that the whole royal city was overrun, by Tholomyes’s men and opportunists of a similar disposition; once while out gathering wood, Valjean even saw a small gang of them riding through the forest. It was ill news that made Valjean grit his teeth and Cosette weep silently in her sleep even if she tried to smile in the daylight. But despite the bandits’ wide-ranging terror, none of them had found the Fauchelevent cottage. The ones he’d seen in the woods hadn’t even appeared to be looking. 

So Valjean waited, and watched, and chopped wood, and helped tend Fauchelevent’s garden, and wondered what he should be telling Cosette. 

Cosette practiced, or at least felt blindly around for, her magic every day. Too often it ended with defeated tears. “I have a hard time feeling it without the throne,” she said, sitting heavily down in the grass next to the garden. “I don’t even know whether it’s up or not without something to push against.” 

Her eyes were wet with frustration, but Valjean leaned on his hoe and smiled. “Remember when your magic first manifested?” he said. 

Cosette wiped her eyes as she mirrored his smile. “It was only enough to make that swan angrier,” she laughed. 

“It may have been brief but it was quite a show,” Valjean chuckled. “Like a miniature lightning strike. Crack!” 

“I was only eleven,” explained Cosette to Fauchelevent, who had paused in pulling weeds to listen to the two of them. “Feeding the swans in the lake near the castle. Sir Jean was watching me, because my nursemaid didn’t like the swans. And one of them charged me from behind, but I didn’t see it at all. So I had no idea what the flash of light had been, much less why this swan was so particularly set against me!” 

“I had to chase the little demon with a stick,” grinned Valjean. 

“He’s always rescuing me from one thing or another,” Cosette said, giggling. “That was hardly anything compared to when I decided to go climbing on the garden wall…” 

Valjean’s eyes drifted away from Cosette as she went on talking, and in the direction of the distant, unseen castle. He found himself thinking, not for the first time since fleeing, of Javert. No amount of gossip had yet brought news of the casualties from the battle—only that there had indeed been casualties. He wanted to believe that Javert was one of the ones who had made it out, either by escape or even by capture, but Valjean had known the man for too long to be able to convince himself. If there was anyone who would have gone down fighting, defending the queen and her realm with his own blood, it would be him. Valjean couldn’t wonder without feeling he already knew, so he tried not to think of it. 

Somehow, though, that’s where his mind kept returning. 

.....

  

Whatever was happening in the village ahead was loud enough that it could be heard on the road long before a single hut was visible. 

“You two,” said Javert, pointing to two of the men following him on horses, as Javert pulled his out in front of the group. “We’re going to investigate and intervene if necessary. The rest of you will take the southern road.” 

“Probably some of Tholomyès’s,” chuckled one of the men—Javert could still not call them knights—that he had gestured to his side. The chuckles stopped at Javert’s stony expression. 

“Either I have the authority to enforce law and order in this domain, or I do not,” he said, meeting the man’s eyes. “Tholomyès seems to be under the impression that I do. Until such day as his views to that effect change, I will continue to do so in the manner I feel is best. Any issues you may have with my decisions should be addressed to him.” 

The man was silent in response, chastised and angry, and fell in behind Javert while the others turned around grumblingly and headed back toward the fork to the southern road. Men like this in such a situation, Javert thought with frustration, were more trouble than they were worth. It was true what the man had said; more than likely any troublemakers they found would be some of the outlaws Tholomyès brought in just like these men, and he’d have to keep one eye on them. 

Well, Javert supposed, he could use them without trusting them. Just like Tholomyès did with him.

..... 

“That didn’t take long,” said Cosette with a smile as Fauchelevent entered the cottage from an errand. “But where are the potatoes?” 

“Bandits,” said Fauchelevent grimly. “You can hear them a mile off. Sounds like they’re tearing the village stick from stone. There may not be anything to buy in the market in an hour’s time, much less potatoes.” 

Cosette’s eyes went wide, and she whirled around to clutch Valjean’s arm. “We have to do something!” she exclaimed. “People could die, Sir Jean. My people. Please go help. _Please.”_

“I’m meant to be protecting _you_ ,” Valjean said, shaking his head. “Your mother charged me with your life.” 

“What about our citizens’ lives?” protested Cosette. “Please. I’ll be safe here with Fauchelevent. This is so much more important.” 

“You’re important,” said Valjean, but he was already reaching for his sword. “Don’t leave the house. If anyone comes to the door, hide, don’t run.” He turned to Fauchelevent. “We’re the only ones who know the princess is here. Nobody who comes to here looking for her is a friend.” 

He strapped on his sword and pulled on a cloak of Fauchelevent’s to hide his fine knight’s sword belt that was so at odds with his borrowed peasant’s clothes.  

“We’ll be safe,” Cosette promised. “Please hurry.” 

Valjean hesitated only a moment more, then, quickly, leaned down and kissed the top of Cosette’s head. Then he turned on his heel and hurried out of the little cottage. 

.....

The sight of the village confirmed all of Javert’s fears. The market was deserted except for a couple of vendors fruitlessly attempting to defend their wares, and toughs menacing them or rooting through abandoned stalls. 

“I want this stopped,” Javert snapped at his men. “The stolen property returned as well. I’m going to check the houses.” 

He rode on without stopping to monitor the men; either they would follow his orders or he would deal with them along with the looters when he returned. In the meantime there were shouts and weeping coming from further off and he dreaded to see what they led to. 

When he rounded the corner he was greeted not only by frightened villagers and the same brand of outlaw as were terrorizing the market, but a face far more familiar than he had been expecting. It was Jean Valjean, in cloak and hood, naked sword in hand. 

“All of you,” he barked. “Leave this place, by royal authority!” Valjean’s eyes snapped to Javert at that, surprise clearly painted on his face.  

The bandits eyed him but with another growl from Javert they ambled off resentfully. Javert would pay for it later, he knew. But Valjean lingered, eyeing the other man, his sword raised cautiously between them. 

“You… you order these men?” Valjean asked slowly. “Javert, have you defected?” 

Javert could hear the smugness creeping around the edge of the disbelief, and it curled his lip. But the question meant that Tholomyes’s loyal dog was not in contact with the castle, or he would have heard of Javert’s position. Such isolation, wherever he was keeping Cosette, would probably mean he would have difficulty reporting Javert as well. This was his chance. 

“I know you have the princess,” he snarled, pointing his sword down at Valjean. The other man’s eyes hardened in an instant, his grip on his weapon going tight.  

“You mean to take her back to the castle?” he said, raising his sword in challenge. 

“You mean to keep her away?” Javert shot back. “Do you fancy yourself her father? You’re not. He won’t let you keep her.” 

“Whoever I might lose her to,” he growled, “it won’t be you!” 

 Javert reared, and his horse kicked out at Valjean, but it was not fast enough of a move to catch off guard a man who he had trained next to for so many years. Valjean leapt to the side, thrusting his sword even as Javert twisted his body out of the way. But Valjean’s blade was not aimed at Javert. Instead it slipped under the strap of the saddle and twisted. _A foolish move,_ he thought even as he fell from his horse. _He was far more likely to lose his sword or break his wrist_. He hit the mud hard, his head snapping back and stars flashing in front of his eyes.   

Javert stumbled to his feet as quickly as he could, head still reeling, and hastily raised his sword to face his opponent. But Valjean had fled, his boots churning the mud, vanishing around the corner as Javert blinked his vision straight. 

It wasn’t too late. He could follow Valjean on horseback yet—Valjean’s own horse had remained in the stables the night Valjean had left. Javert went to jump onto his horse when another bandit burst from a cottage door, a bulging bag in his fist.  

“To order!” Javert barked. “Sir Javert, captain of her—his—majesty’s men. You will stand down!” 

By the time he had the man back with the group of them in the market square—one bag of ill-gotten nature poorer and one bloody lip richer—Valjean was nowhere to be seen. 

“A man in a dark cloak!” he shouted at the gathered men. “He must have come right through here. Did none of you see him?!” He was met only with shrugs and he snarled in frustration. “Useless, brainless roustabouts!” 

“We’re meant to be heading to the border, aren’t we, sir?” said one of the men he’d brought with him.  

“Yes, thank you,” he spat. “I’m aware.” He lingered a moment longer, his horse stepping restlessly underneath him, but then hissed and turned it back toward the east and the border. He might yet be able to track down and overtake Valjean, but not without either leaving Tholomyes’s men alone or leading them all directly to the princess. 

“Move out,” he growled, and spurred his horse ahead of them, not looking back to see if any of them followed. 

.....

Valjean burst into the cottage, disheveled and tension high. Cosette leapt up instantly from the fireside. 

“What happened? Is the village safe?”

Valjean did not answer, but only went to the window to peer out through the curtains.

“Did someone follow you?” asked Fauchelevent, alarmed. Valjean watched a second longer before pulling the curtains closed and shaking his head.  

“I don’t think so,” he said, “But I…” He ran his hand through his hair restlessly, a strangely young gesture. “I met Sir Javert.” 

Cosette brightened. “He escaped the castle? That’s wonderful news! Maybe he can help us!”

Valjean shook his head again. “No,” he said quietly. “He was… leading the men. I don’t know why or how, but they took his orders. And he… knew where you were. He told me I would not be allowed to keep you.” 

Fauchelevent frowned but Cosette looked shocked. “Javert? Our Javert was leading an attack against the village? Are you sure?” 

“I don’t think so,” he frowned. “I don’t know. It looked more like he was ordering them out.” He shook his head again, in disbelief this time. He could not seem to stop shaking his head. “Javert as always, keeping the law. But he certainly had authority over the men—they called him captain.” 

“You think he’s defected,” says Fauchelevent grimly. 

“Surely not!” exclaimed Cosette. 

“I don’t know what else to think,” Valjean sighed. “But we know he’s after Cosette.” 

.....

The company that Javert led back from the border was not an army, but he could not find it in him to be relieved. He led another company of criminals to the royal castle that he had once sworn to guard, riding stiffly upright, his jaw set, his eyes distant. It was a grave thing, these new arrivals, but his mind was not with them or the additional trouble they posed for the kingdom or the castle; it was back in the village, looking down into the shuttered, distrustful eyes of Jean Valjean. 

He was worried about the princess, that was the problem. Who knew what sorts of lies Valjean had told the girl to make her sit quietly wherever she was hidden, waiting for his return? What lies would he tell to get her to her father’s side? 

That image, of Valjean lying to Cosette, sat uneasily with Javert. Well, of course it did. Was it supposed to please him? But to picture Valjean knelt before her like he used to when she was young, or standing to the side of her seat in the throne room, murmuring lies— 

It was a cruel task Valjean had been set with, Javert realized, if he had indeed been Tholomyes’s inside man all these years. His closeness to the princess would have been difficult to fake entirely for so many years, and here was the proof at the end of it—now, with his master’s play made at last and all his loyalties laid bare, he yet seemed to be looking out for the princess as much as for his master. It troubled Javert more than it reassured him. A man motivated by money or power was much easier to bargain with, was much easier to control. 

Javert frowned at the road before him, deaf to the raucousness of the troupe behind him, and knew that he was not looking forward to the day when he had to stop Valjean.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Inkgeek, who is my dream beta and deserves better than this.

Javert spent the day after returning to the castle waiting for Tholomyés to hear from his lackey Valjean and the have Javert imprisoned for treason, but the moment never came. Well, he supposed, if Valjean couldn't leave the princess alone for long, wherever he had her hidden away, then maybe Javert had more time.

More time, though, for what? They had to be near that village, which was too far to search without alerting Tholomyés. But with every day the risks increased, Tholomyés's game progressed another step. Javert's true loyalties would be found out soon, and there was nothing he could do to help either the princess or the queen.

The queen?

How many strands of her hair did they have, exactly?

Perhaps, if he was careful, there was something he yet could do.

 

\---

 

"It's fine," said Valjean soothingly as Cosette's magic practice came to a frustrated end once again. "It's alright, we'll try more later."

"And what if it doesn't happen later either?" sighed Cosette. "Sometimes I can sense it the way Mother's said, but not consistently, not enough to go back." She sat down and plucked restlessly at the grass. "We're running out of time, Sir Jean, I can feel it," she said. "Every day the castle is occupied the task of reclaiming it grows more difficult." 

"When your magic manifests--" Valjean began, but Cosette shook her head.

"We have no idea how long that will take. And if the enemy could thwart Mother’s magic, why not mine?"

Valuable started to object, but stopped himself. He was still loath to explain the nature of 'the enemy' until he had to--and he was besides unsure if he knew as much as he thought he did about Tholomelyés's magical advantage. How exactly were the talismans made, and what could they protect against?

"We can't keep hoping that I'll be able to do this on my own," Cosette was continuing. "There has to be something we can do to help Mother before it gets any worse."

Valjean sighed, staring out into the trees in the direction of the distant, unseen castle. Cosette waited silently, watching him. "You're right," he said finally. "Fauchelevent, can you borrow a horse in the village?" he asked his friend. 

"Do you intend to go back to the castle?" Fauchelevent exclaimed.

"What else can I do?" said Valjean. "We have no information about the situation at the castle. We can't form another plan until we know where we stand. It's worth the risk."

Fauchelevent furrowed his brow in thought. "I think I know a horse you can use. Princess, could you be so kind as to select some tomatoes from the garden? I think I can easily barter use of a horse for a few of our best."

When Cosette had disappeared in pursuit of the tomatoes, Fauchelevent turned back to Valjean.

"You're not thinking of Javert?" he asked.

Valjean frowned. "Javert?"

"He is not often far from your mind, I think. You don't plan to confront him, do you?"

Valjean grimaced. He'd assumed himself harder to read than that. "I do not intend to confront him," he answered truthfully. "If it were only myself at risk... but the princess is my priority. If Javert seeks the princess for his new lord, my job is to keep her from him, not determine why. As much as I might wish to."

Fauchelevent nodded, satisfied. "If you leave at twilight, you should reach the castle after suppertime. I don't know where you intend to look or what you hope to determine, but I will keep watch in your absence."

"Thank you, friend," said Valjean. He sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. "He hasn't even broken his knight's oath, really," he said ruefully.

"But he's forsaken the queen, hasn't he?" said Fauchelevent with surprise. Valjean shook his head.

"Our oath, the oath she had us swear, was not to her," Valjean explained. "She said that her own oath was sworn to the nation and the people, and it was to these that we, too, owed our loyalty. It's the kind of thing she likes to say," he added, smiling fondly.

"A wise woman," Fauchelevent observed.

"Yes," agreed Valjean. "Our fault as knights then, I suppose, for not doing as she asked. Javert, though... it's precisely something he would remember and hold to." Valjean sighed. "If defecting put him in a position to better protect the nation and not the queen--and no doubt it would--I think I can even believe hunting the princess of him." He shrugged unhappily. "He's done his duty, nothing more."

Fauchelevent laid a comforting hand on Valjean's shoulder. "I know you would wish his soul safe," he said.

Valjean frowned, but before he could say anything, Cosette returned with the tomatoes. Valjean quickly replaced his brooding expression with a smile.

"Thank you, princess," said Fauchelevent. He stood from his chair and accepted the basket from her. "I should be back in an hour or so, plenty of time for you to reach the castle by evening."

"Thank you," said Valjean. "Cosette, how about a bit more practice until I have to go?"

 

\---

 

Javert stood before Tholomyés wearing a stubborn scowl that Fantine would have found very familiar.

"You want to _increase_ the guard on the queen?" Tholomyés said with amused incredulity. 

"I want," said Javert with forced patience, "certain of your men far out of my sphere of leadership, since you have not permitted me to dismiss them and they do not prefer to be led. Since the guard on the queen's quarters is the only place in the castle where my authority as captain does not reach, then by all means I wish them there."

"You don't wish them exchanged with the existing guard?" Tholomyés pressed, leaning his chin on his fist. 

Javert breathed out through his nose. "I would be surprised, to say the least, if you were to do such a thing," he said dryly. Tholomyés's attempts to draw out hints of Javert's loyalty were about as subtle as Javert's personal code.

Apparently satisfied, Tholomyés sat back up. "Regardless, it's impossible. There aren't more talismans against the queen's magic to give your disgraced rejects, so they'd be no use guarding her room," he said.

Javert's scowl deepened. "I shall see if the kitchen needs more potato peelers, then," he snapped, and turned on his heel to stalk away back to his duties.

He did his best to hide his smile. No more talismans than what they had, hm? Interesting.

 

\---

 

The sky was deepening to purple when Valjean, on Fauchelevent's borrowed horse, reached the edge of the woods. He stood looking at the castle standing proud in the distance, and it was easy to imagine that all was well within its walls. It looked no different from out here, no external indication of the man who governed within as a wasting disease would govern in a body. 

He would get in, try to find a sympathetic servant if he could, and determine the state of the castle and its forces. And, for that matter, the state of the queen--he had assuaged the princess's worries for her mother with assurances that her powers would protect her, and that the invader would be foolish not to keep her safe. 

He hoped he had told her the truth.

Valjean secured his horse as near to the castle as he dared and pulled up the hood of his rough cloak. He was grateful to see that Tholomyés seemed to inspire no great loyalty, for none of the men he saw prowling about outside of the castle were familiar to him from his time in the man's service so many years ago. It would be much easier this way to progress through the castle undetected and unrecognized. 

He would not take chances, however. He did not know the servants’ passages quite as well as Cosette, but knew them well enough after years spent following her about, and knew there was a route that would take him from the stables to near the kitchens. Perhaps there he could find a place to secret himself and try to overhear news on the state of things.

 

\---

 

He was, he could admit, not as good at these things as Cosette.

Valjean made a turn one passage too early in the route from the stables, and rather than ending up in a discreet, shadowy corner near the kitchens, ended up colliding with someone wearing patrol armor.

He grabbed for his own sword before he realized who it was and then let out a relieved breath. Dame Favourite looked quickly over her shoulder and hurried him into an alcove.

"Sir Valjean!" she exclaimed in a hushed voice, grasping his shoulders. "I feared you dead in the attack! Where have you been all this time, my friend?"

"I've been guarding the princess," he answered. "I came tonight in search of information about the state of the castle, since we have been without any news since we fled." Favourite's eyes lit up with gladness and gratitude. 

"Then she _is_ safe," Favourite said, relieved. "I had hoped she would manage to escape during the attack. I am overjoyed to hear that it was so." Valjean could see, beneath her smile, how the weeks of the castle's occupation--or, more likely, the weeks of the queen's imprisonment--had been wearing on his comrade. She looked tired and aggrieved and deeply sad. Valjean was the knight the queen trusted to watch over her daughter, and Javert was--had been--her loyal captain, but Favourite was the knight closest to Fantine, and Valjean could only imagine how the helpless situation weighed on her shoulders.

"How fares her Majesty?" he asked quietly. Favourite sighed.

"Tholomyés has her locked away in one of the tower rooms, under guard by men wearing those talismans made from her hair. He won't let anyone near her room that's ever sworn her fealty, but I do not believe they have hurt her." She shook her head and tears glistened in her eyes. "They won't even let me speak to her." 

Valjean patted her shoulders comfortingly. "How many of us are left?" he asked. "How many of them?"

Favourite shook her head. "Naught but a handful of us free. Some dead, some imprisoned. Not enough to take the castle back from his hordes, not without the queen. He brings more blackguards to add to his ranks every day, it seems."

Valjean took a deep breath, and asked the question he most wanted an answer to and the one he least wanted to ask.

"And Javert?" he said.

Her lovely face darkened. "The greatest rascal of them all," she said. "Who would have thought it? But his position was worth more to him than his fealty to her Majesty, it seems. He has defected to Tholomyés in order to keep his place as captain of the guard."

Valjean winced, his heart pained to hear confirmed what he had already suspected. "You don't think it likely that he did so to minimize the damage of Tholomyés's occupation?" he suggested, though in his mind he saw Javert, atop his horse in the looted village. _I know you have the princess_.

"Certainly," Favourite said grimly. "Sir Javert keeping the law, as usual. I wouldn't be surprised. But though he has no love for Tholomyés's bandits, he does not speak to those of us who also went free, and he bows to the snake and calls him King and takes his orders. And he is allowed to carry a sword within the castle, where we must go weaponless." She gestured to her hip, where once hung her own sword. "His men, of course, carry any manner of blade they wish. If Javert is not one of that usurper's men, Tholomyés does not seem to know it." Her expression grew even stormier. "He even suggested increasing the guard on Fantine's cell this morning."

"Increasing her guard?" Valjean repeated incredulously. He shook his head. "Javert, a traitor. I can hardly believe it. I should have said he had the most loyal fiber of any man I knew, for all that he always distrusted me." He looked up again at a hand laid on his arm.

"I know how it must grieve you to hear," she said, more gently. "I know how you esteem him, but you must accept that Sir Javert is the enemy now. He cannot be trusted." Valjean repressed another wince. First Fauchelevent, now Favourite. Was his heart so obvious? He supposed he had never gone to any great lengths to hide it. But he had been waiting all these years for Javert to soften, certain that eventually he could earn the captain's trust. Now, he supposed, the day would never come. His chest ached to think of it like a knife between the ribs.

"I do understand, Dame Favourite," he answered, pressing the hand that still rested on his arm,. "I am not counting on his help to take back the castle."

Favourite leaned forward eagerly. "You do intend to take it back?" she said. "I have gone over a thousand times in my head how we might free the queen, but Tholomyés is no fool, and I cannot conjure a plan to get her all the way to the throne room. But if you have Cosette, we might yet succeed." She smiled warmly. "It is the best news I have heard since that wretched day."

Valjean smiled back at her. "And that you remain free and well the best news I have heard," he replied. 

There was a sound down the corridor, and Favourite tensed and glanced over her shoulder. "You must go," she said. "Give my love to the princess, and tell her that her mother is unharmed to the best of my knowledge, and send me word if you need my help. Good luck, Sir Valjean." And she ducked out of the alcove and vanished down the corridor. 

Valjean heard her head in the opposite direction of the passage from which he had emerged, and a few moments later heard the indistinct sounds of a brusque conversation between Favourite and who he assumed was one of Tholomyés's men. He slipped quickly down to his passage but hesitated behind the tapestry that hid it from view. 

Javert had asked to increase the guard on the queen. It seemed impossible to imagine. How heavily was she guarded now? He had to see for himself. Cosette was still right--if she couldn't master her magic soon, the queen was their best hope, especially if Tholomyés's forces were increasing as quickly as Favourite had said.

He was much more circumspect this time as he navigated the passages to as close as they could get him to the tower where he thought it most likely Fantine was imprisoned. He was glad, at least, that he had not chosen to armor himself at all for this expedition; even the sound of his boots echoed in these isolated halls, and he stepped gingerly on the stone floors as he progressed through the hidden passages.

No one came here, he suspected, who did not wear one of the dark talismans against the queen's power that had given Tholomyés entry into the castle long ago. Valjean and his other knights had known nothing of Tholomyés's wicked plan, meaning they had needed no talismans to counter Queen Fantine's powers that protected her and her kingdom from ill intent. He had clearly spread his lock of the queen's hair between more talismans since then. But how many? Was there any chance at all of freeing the queen?

Jean Valjean had not had many opportunities to know why a sword tip at his back felt like, but this one pressed so insistently that there was no question what it was. He thought about grabbing his own sword, even though he knew that should he vanquish this foe it would only call more and he could not defeat the entire castle. But he thought of Cosette, waiting back in the hut in the forest, and slowly raised his hands.

“Valjean,” intoned the man behind him, and Valjean closed his eyes.

 

“Sir Javert,” he said., “We meet again.”

 

“Here to bend your knee to your false sovereign?” Javert sneered. “To make a report, perhaps, of my treachery?” Valjean’s chest panged and he barely kept himself from whipping around to face the other man. There were so many things he could say, but he didn’t know where to start and doubted they would do any good. 

“I know you think you’re doing the right thing,” he said, his heart heavy. “butBut you will come to regret this course of action and the allies you have chosen. I do not wish you to have such regrets.”

 

The sword point made a jab between his shoulder blades and Javert snarled.

 

“I am satisfied with the allies I have chosen,” he said. “As I suppose you must be. A shred of loyalty after all, it seems.” 

Valjean gritted his teeth. That Javert could despise him for so many years for breaking his oath to Tholomyés and then mock him for keeping his oath to Fantine seemed grotesquely unfair.

“I am no worse a man than you, Javert,” he replied quietly. “I never have been.”

“It has always pleased you to think so,” Javert snapped. “To be honest, I did think better of you than this.” He did? “I would have thought you would give up this foolish path for the princess’ sake, if nothing else.”

That was too much. Valjean spun about and faced Javert, startling the other knight out of pressing his advantage and his sword. “It is for the princess that I do this!” he fired back, eyes blazing. “It always has been! Forfor sixteen years! You have hated me all this time, no matter how I waited, no matter how I tried to change your feelings, but surely even you can see it was all for Cosette, and for Fantine.” 

The other man went still, but Valjean did not notice. “I have always… I have always held you in great esteem. I do not understand how you could do this, be this, even for the sake of law and order,” he went on, holding out his hands pleadingly. “Fantine trusts you to protect her kingdom, yes, but has she not earned any loyalty for herself?”

There was a sound from down the corridor of footsteps and voices and the clanking of sheathed weapons on hips. Sir Valjean backed up a step and hissed in dismay, looking over his adversary's shoulder towards the still-unseen source of the approaching noise.

He met Javert's eyes briefly, and his hand fell to the hilt of his sword. Javert looked back at him, his sword still raised between them. They stood there for a long moment, the two men’s chests rising and falling, the footsteps getting closer. 

Then Valjean turned and fled.

\---

_Fantine trusts you to protect her kingdom, yes, but has she not earned any loyalty for herself?_

Javert stared at Valjean, his raised sword almost forgotten in his hand.

His mind was whirling. 

_Surely even you can see it was all for Cosette, and for Fantine._

He felt very stupid. He had missed something. What had he missed?

Valjean ran. Javert did not try to stop him.

_Even for the sake of law and order._

He turned around to face the approaching men just before they rounded the corner. It was a small band of Tholomyés's ruffians, who stopped short when they saw Javert standing in the middle of the hall, sword drawn and looking, he suspected, a little haunted.

“Where’s the battle, old man?” one of them demanded, and the others laughed mockingly. Javert sheathed his sword and glowered full force, gratified secretly when a few of them stopped laughing.

“What else am I meant to think,” he said, “when I hear a band of armed men approaching along a corridor that, unless I am very much mistaken, is meant to be restricted from the general ranks.”

“It's also restricted from dogs of the old bitch,” sneered another one of the men. “What are you doing up here?”

Javert almost put his sword to the man’s throat. It would not have been difficult. None of these slack-jawed thugs would have had time to react.

_I do not understand how you could do this. Be this._

He lifted his hand slowly from his sword, where it had fallen without his awareness. The men around the one who had spoken, he saw, had all taken a step back, and the group was silent.

 _It is for the princess that I do this, too, Valjean,_ Javert thought.

“I am one of His Majesty’s men now, just as you are,” he said in a quiet, dangerous voice. “I am the captain of His Majesty's knights, and you should be careful how you speak to me.”

None of the men said a word.

Javert walked away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to fellowshipofthegay on Tumblr, for convincing me to make this story that I super resent the first thing I worked on after NaNoWriMo, haha. Enjoy some more Dumb Elderly Gays: With Swords Edition! We got maybe one more chapter left??? Honestly many things could happen at this point. Pray for my soul
> 
> Fun fact: when I tried this chapter out on my friend I gave her A Look over my glasses whenever anything really gay happened and there was a lot of Looks

Valjean made his way through the castle corridors as quietly as he could, blinded though he was by the images floating before his eyes.

 _The greatest rascal of them all_ , Favourite had said. He saw her saying it, saw the sympathy in her eyes as she said _You must accept that Javert is the enemy now._

And Javert too. _I did think better of you than this._ What a strange, cruel thing for him to say. Never once had he ever thought better of Valjean; never once had Javert permitted him the benefit of any doubt or allowed for the possibility that Valjean might change. And now, when Javert himself had turned coat, he thought better of him.

Valjean slipped his hood up before stepping out to cross the moonlit stretch between the passage exit and the stables, but his mood was still too dark for proper caution. He saw Sir Javert’s sneer and raised sword instead of a shadow, and heard _I am satisfied with the allies I have chosen_ instead of footfalls.

And as Valjean mounted his horse and rode it into the woods, he was too preoccupied asking questions in his heart that began “why” and “how” to notice the figure of Monsieur Thénadier, mounting another horse and following at a distance behind.

 

\---

 

When Valjean returned to the cottage, Cosette was sitting looking out the window with a lamp, watching for his approach.

“Princess, you mustn't sit so when I'm not here,” he scolded as he came in. “Anyone could see you.”

“Did you see my mother?” the princess pleaded, jumping up to take his cloak.

“She was much too heavily guarded for me to get close,” said Valjean, omitting who had stopped him on the way. He unclasped his cloak and Cosette tugged it from his shoulders and hung it on a peg. “But I did happen upon Dame Favourite.”

Cosette’s eyes, which had saddened to hear no news of her mother, now brightened.

“She is well?” she exclaimed.

“She is well,” Valjean confirmed. “And gladdened to hear that you are well. She does not doubt you in the least; the news that you lived not only gave her great joy, but hope for regaining the kingdom.”

Cosette wilted a little, but then straightened her shoulders and pasted on a smile that broke Valjean’s heart. “With you and Favourite behind me, I know we are sure to retake the castle, Sir Jean. You are as good as an army,” she said. “Did you hear news of Sir Javert?”

Now it was Valjean’s turn to wilt, a cloud passing over his face before he could school it otherwise. Cosette’s hands clasped before her in concern. 

“Is he all right?” she asked.

“He is well,” Valjean said. “Princess, it grieves me to say it”--oh, how it grieved him, more than he had words to express-- “but there is no mistake. Sir Javert is an agent of the enemy.”

“I can't believe that,” the princess said, making a face. “Our Javert could never betray Mama. He may not be the gentlest of gentlemen, but his moral fiber would never let him."

“Favourite attested to the truth of it,” Valjean said, even as his heart was insisting that Cosette had to be right. “We cannot hope for his help.” He sighed, but collected himself quickly. “More immediately, Princess, it can only be a couple hours at most before the dawn. When we do see your mother again, I hope to be able to tell her I took good care of you and made you get your rest.” He touched the tip of her nose with his fingertip. Cosette sighed, but it turned right away into a yawn.

“Very well, Sir Jean,” she said. “We’ll talk about retaking the castle once we’ve both gotten some rest.”

Valjean kissed her on top of the head. “Indeed we will,” he said. “There's plenty of time yet.”

 

\---

 

“The girl,” Thénadier breathed into the night, from the shadows where he watched at a distance on his horse. He looked at the princess sitting in the window, the lamplight golden on her lovely face, and a nasty smile crept onto his own. Tholomyès would reward him handsomely now--he’d get everything he should have gotten for getting them into the castle in the first place. He'd be a baron. Or an earl!

Valjean had stolen that from him by stealing away the princess, plain and simple. It was time to settle the debt.

He turned his horse around and headed back to the castle, as quietly and as quickly as he could.

 

\---

 

Javert had duties that called him elsewhere in the castle, but for once, he neglected them. He was still reeling from the events of last night, and had risen early from a restless bed to relieve one of Tholomyès’s grunts from his chilly patrol around the perimeter of the castle. Javert was out there still as the sun climbed in the sky, tramping a long circuit over ground that he knew better than his own face--far better than his own heart.

_I am no worse a man than you, Javert. I never have been._

Impossible.

The failing it would mean as a man, much less as Her Majesty's captain--

_You have hated me all this time, no matter how I waited, no matter how I tried to change your feelings._

Javert stomped the muddy path a little harder than he needed. He thought perhaps he was getting ill. He might have a fever; his chest certainly felt very strange.

_I have always held you in great esteem._

Impossible.

His feet stilled as he stared unseeing at the distant edge of the woods. Instead he saw hazel eyes smiling at him--in corridors, at supper, at the council table--and waiting for him to smile back.

_These sixteen years…_

He blinked and shook it off, and his eyes refocused on a horse riding out from the trees. A minute later, he could see that the man atop it was Thénadier.

Sir Javert scowled and settled his stance into something stern and commanding and waited for the rogue’s approach. 

“That is not your horse, Thénadier,” he said when the man was within frowning distance.

“Took it on official business,” the contemptible little man sneered. “I've got some information His Majesty will be very interested in.” Javert suspected he meant to leave it there, but either Javert made him nervous or he couldn't resist the opportunity to boast, because he lifted his chin and added “I've just seen Sir Valjean's hideout with my own two eyes.”

Javert’s mind froze for a fraction of a second, and then began whirling in triple time.

There was no chance of finding the princess without staying to hear Thénadier’s report to Tholomyès; there was no chance of getting the location from Thénadier before Tholomyès heard of it. There was no chance of stopping Tholomyès from sending out a party once he'd heard the report; there was no chance of being able to leave ahead of the party.

All of this waiting, this bowing and scraping and lying and biding his time had to be for _something._

“His Majesty will be very interested to hear that indeed,” Javert said coolly. “Put the horse away and I will take you to the king directly.”

Tholomyès was in conference with his warmongering bandits when they entered. Javert’s no doubt dire demeanor must have promised enticing news, though, for he silenced their bickering with an upheld hand when Javert stopped before his chair.

“What word this morning, captain?” he said. If Javert had been inclined to answer (beyond an ill-advised line about afternoon not becoming morning just because of the dictate of a late-rising sovereign) he was given no opportunity. Thénadier stepped forward, all smug confidence.

“Sir Valjean was in the castle only last night,” he said. “I saw him just as he left, and there was no time to alert the guards. But I followed him and saw his hideout and… his companions myself.” The worm probably thought he was being subtle, but Javert was certain he had seen the princess. “I have just returned, and came to you right away.”

Tholomyès had roused himself from his slouch and sat now on the edge of his seat, regarding them with glittering eyes and steepled fingers.   
“Did he see you?” he demanded. Thénadier shook his head.

“I can be very sneaky when I want to, your Majesty,” he said. Javert didn't doubt it.

“Excellent work,” Tholomyès said. “We shall send a party out immediately.”

“Sir,” Javert interjected, stepping forward too. “I request permission to lead the party to bring in Sir Valjean.” 

Now Tholomyès’s attention was on Javert, focused and assessing.

“You had no great love for the man, I remember,” Tholomyès said. “I hear not much has changed in all these years.”

The statement made Javert uncomfortable for reasons he couldn't articulate. “I am eager to see him brought back under the authority of the castle,” he said.

Tholomyès sat and looked at Javert. Javert was reminded again that the man was a reprobate but not a fool; Javert's only ally was still Tholomyès’s inability to recognize a noble impulse in another heart, so unfamiliar with nobility as he was himself.

Javert felt an unexpected stab as he found himself with more in common with the blackgaurd than he liked to imagine.

If Tholomyès did not permit him to go with the party, he would have to follow. He could meet them coming back with Valjean and the princess; there would be no way to keep her out of the fight, but there was nothing for it. If Tholomyès suspected him, however, he might try to keep Javert busy in the castle, and then he would be better off waiting and maintaining his advantage than fighting his way out… but once Valjean had been captured--

“I will grant you this request,” Tholomyès said. “I chose my captain well; I was concerned compunction or old loyalties would be a hindrance, but your commitment to law and order has been absolute.”

_Even for the sake of law and order._

Javert felt just slightly nauseous.

“Happy to be of service, your Majesty,” he said.

Tholomyès laughed. “You aren't,” he said. “But I'm willing to grant you a bit of revenge on my faithless vassal if that's the only reward you'll accept.”

Revenge? Revenge was petty and personal and nothing to do with justice. Javert could never be a creature of revenge.

The queen’s banished consort was looking at Sir Javert like he knew him. Tholomyès didn't know him.

Tholomyès settled himself back in his chair with an air of satisfaction. “When can you leave?” he asked.

“Immediately,” Javert answered. “I shall go assemble my men now.”

“Your Majesty,” Thénadier put in with a wheedling tone of voice, “with respect I been out riding half the night--”

“You heard my captain,” Tholomyès said. “Immediately. Go.” He was smiling. He must believe Javert to be entirely his man. Javert was not. He was the queen's man. He belonged to the crown, not the man who thought it was his to wear.

Javert nodded, turned, and went from the room. 

He went straight to the barracks, Thénadier dragging whiningly behind him. He picked two men who had just come off a long guard shift--ignoring their protests--two who were appalling horsemen, and one too caught up in fancy sword tricks to ever best one of her Majesty's knights.

They saddled and rode out, Thénadier on his same “borrowed” horse, much finer than Thénadier’s own. The man’s concerns about exhaustion apparently did not extend to the beast; normally Javert would intervene, but today he needed the advantage. He apologized mentally to the mare--one of the imprisoned knights’, he thought--and resolved to reward her if he was still alive tomorrow.

The forest thickened quickly once they'd passed under the first trees. They stayed on the path, but there was no way Valjean had been hiding out on the main road all the time and not been found before now. Javert remembered their encounter in the village; he must be staying near enough to have heard of the commotion in the town and respond. If his base were in or around the village, they would be taking a different road, even if the princess could have somehow avoided being recognized.

He still did not have enough information to find Valjean without Thénadier, so he stayed with his party of scoundrels, watching Thénadier ride in the lead on his tired horse. Valjean hiding in the woods at least did not surprise Javert; the man had always been a formidable hunter and woodsman, and his skills had hardly dulled in the last sixteen years.

Had it really been sixteen years? They had neither of them been boys when Tholomyès came to court, his most trusted knight tall and broad shouldered beside him. Sir Valjean had seemed to go white haired overnight with Tholomyès’s betrayal, but besides that the marks of time had gone largely unnoticed--by Javert at least. The years and their evidence had accumulated like snow, inch by insidious inch, and Javert thought of them both now and saw that they were old. Still hale and strong, and keeping pace with knights half their age, but with lines on their faces and weariness in their eyes.

Javert was not a creature of change. He still wore his iron gray hair in the tail of his youth, tied with a dark ribbon. He still performed his duties in her Majesty's court the same, walked the same routes, said the same words, as the day he'd been knighted. Once not too long ago, after a training injury thanks to an overly enthusiastic page, Fantine had (without much hope) offered him an elevated court title and retirement, and laughed fondly when he had turned it down.

“I suppose you wouldn't know how to be retired,” she had said. “It would be a whole new skill to learn. I can't fault you for staying with your strengths.”

Now, for the first time, Javert was forced to consider that maybe his unbending resistance to change was instead a weakness.

The sun was sinking again, filtering yellow through the leaves, when they reached a nearly invisible path diverting from the road and disappearing under dark low branches.  
“There we are,” said Thénadier proudly. “Two miles up that track, maybe three, there's a clearing. It's a cottage on the far side.”

“Are you sure?” frowned Javert.

“I've a great head for directions, monsieur,” said Thénadier, offended.

“Good,” Javert said, and broke away down the path.

The sounds of confusion and shouts for him to slow were quickly swallowed up by the foliage. Javert couldn't go as fast as he wanted--he was an excellent horseman, but not as familiar with the woods as Valjean, and he had to be careful to keep his horse Gymont from tripping on the tree roots underfoot--but he had a lead on the band by the time they came crashing through the underbrush.

One of the poor horsemen urged his animal over a rough patch of ground, and Javert heard the horse go down with a scream of protest. Another man cursed at a branch striking him across the face.   
Javert heard them losing ground, but he did not look back. His best chance was for them to think it was only anxiousness on his part to reach their goal and not an attempt to lose them.

It seemed an eternity of trotting through the treacherous underbrush before he saw the brightness of a clearing ahead.

“For the princess, Gymont,” he muttered as they reached the edge of the trees, and broke into a gallop.

 

\---

 

They were sitting outside, as they often did in the evenings. Cosette was on hands and knees in the garden, the canvas work apron she had borrowed from Fauchelevent doing very little to keep her dress clean. Valjean sat in one of the wooden chairs which he had brought out onto the grass, and was at work on a basket of mending that Fauchelevent’s eyes and age-gnarled fingers did not find as easy as they used to. Fauchelevent stood near to Cosette, instructing her in the art of vegetable gardening.

It was relatively common to hear people on the hunting paths around the cottage, but not horses, and not so many, and not traveling with so much urgency. Even so, Valjean was too lost in thought to realize what he heard until the lead of the host was bursting into the clearing.

It was Javert. Surging straight for them like a thunderhead, leaning over the neck of his warhorse in full gallop.

“Fauchelevent, my sword!” he shouted, already standing up. “Princess, get in the house!” But the clearing was not that large, and there was not enough time. Fauchelevent ran limping for the door, and Cosette tried to scramble to her feet, but Javert was nearly on top of them with four men behind, and there was nothing to do but put his body between the body of his princess and the drawn sword of his captain. Valjean felt his heart break.

And then Javert turned his horse around.

Divots of earth flew from under its hooves as it halted, and Javert raised his sword to confront the men trampling toward them, the four halfway across the clearing by now and a fifth just emerging from the trees. By his side, Valjean felt Cosette grasp a handful of his shirt and heard her gasp.

There was a sound like a tree branch snapping under ice. A blue wave of light rushed out in a circle from the princess like a ripple in a pond. Javert it passed through, but the men following were thrown from their horses like rag dolls.  
Fauchelevent emerged from the cottage with Valjean’s sword. Valjean took it but only stood, his other arm protectively around Cosette, staring up at Javert.

“Your Highness,” Javert greeted her, a little breathless.

One of the men struggled upright and began to stagger forward. Valjean and Javert both looked to Cosette, but the princess looked at the advancing man, fearful and bewildered. A further pulse of light did not appear, and when it became clear it would not, Javert rode forward again.

Fauchelevent hurried Cosette into the house as Valjean followed after Javert. Three of the men had risen now, and two lay still. Javert rode past the first man, leaving him to Valjean, and cut down the second with a downward slice of his sword. 

The first man came toward Valjean, sword held up before him, but he was still dazed from his fall from his horse. They met swords for only a few moments before a hole opened in his defense, and Valjean slid his blade home.

Javert trotted his horse back, sheathing his weapon with a look of disgust on his face.

“Thénadier has gotten away,” he spat. “A horse was frightened and got between us, and he escaped into the underbrush. If you haven't a horse, you'll have to take one of these. We don't have time to waste.”

“Javert,” said Valjean, because _something_ had to be said, there was some essential link Valjean was missing.

“I mean the princess no harm, as you saw yourself,” Javert said brusquely. “I fight for her Majesty Queen Fantine, and recognize and serve no liege and no line but her and hers.” Valjean opened his mouth to speak, and Javert exhaled sharply and gripped his reins. “Valjean, there's no _time._ ”

Valjean went over and took the bridle of one of the horses he recognized, and hurried back over to the cottage behind Javert. Cosette was already coming back out, wearing a shining smile.

“Sir Javert! You are with us?” She clasped her hands in front of her happily. “I knew you were! I knew there must have been a mistake!”

Valjean glanced at Javert and found Javert glancing at him. Valjean looked away quickly, and helped Cosette up onto the horse.

“Where should we run?” Valjean asked. He had no plan from here. It wasn’t meant to go like this.

“Run?” Javert snorted. “There’s nowhere to run. The whole castle will soon know my allegiances. There is no more time to bide. All my making good with that snake Tholomyès will be for nothing if we don’t go _now._ ” 

“Go?” said Cosette, with a quail that suggested she knew what he meant.

“The castle, princess,” said Javert, a bit less harshly. “If we beat Thénadier there, I can enter the castle unchallenged, and I hope manage to get you in as well. But if we wait, we lose all advantage we have.”

“I’m not ready,” she protested, clutching the mane of the horse. “You saw, Sir Javert, I’m not ready.” She looked pleadingly down at Valjean, who looked in turn at Javert.

“If we get her to the throne and she can’t use it, we will be overcome in a moment,” Valjean said.

“We’ll try to free her Majesty then,” Javert replied, growling with impatience, “But right now we have to ride.”

Valjean swung up in front of Cosette. “Thank you for all your help, my friend,” he said to Fauchelevent. “You should not stay here in case more return. Go to the village and pray for our success.” 

“Good luck, my brother,” said Fauchelevent, and Valjean spurred his horse on without another word. Javert was not a moment behind him as they rode for the castle.

Cosette rode with her arms around him, holding securely onto him as they rode through the thick forest growth. She was so small against his back, it seemed that he could still stand between her and the world, protect her as once he had when she was young, guard her from geese and thunderstorms and the unkind words of her nurse.

But from this, he knew, he could no longer protect her.

“Cosette,” he said. His chest was tight and his mouth dry, but he swallowed and continued. “Did your mother ever tell you about your father?”  
Cosette's slender hand came up to rest on the crook of Valjean's elbow.

“She did,” she said quietly. 

Valjean let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. She knew? She knew. It was good that she knew. She deserved to. 

“I heard Sir Javert say ‘Tholomyès’ earlier,” Cosette was saying. “It's he who took over the castle, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Valjean. He kept his eyes on the path ahead, but felt her hand warm on his arm.

After a moment, Cosette spoke again.

“Mother said that… someday there might be more,” she said hesitantly. “That you would want to tell me. About my father, I mean.”

Valjean’s knuckles whitened around the reins. She _didn't_ know. Not about him--of course she didn't, the queen would have let him tell his own story if he wished it told. He almost wished she wouldn't have.

It took him a minute to figure out how to start.   
“Your father is not a good man,” he said. He felt Cosette nod, her cheek against his back. “Your mother gains the loyalty of her subjects through her wisdom and kindness,” he said, “but Tholomyès coerced loyalty from his vassals to with bribes and debts.” He breathed in through his nose, gathering his courage. 

“He paid to free me from prison, and I became his servant,” he continued. “I served him loyally, and he provided for my sister and her children, back in one of the villages of which he was lord.”

“You have a sister?” Cosette said.

“I did not see her,” said Valjean quietly, “for several years. Tholomyès would not permit me to visit them. I received one or two letters, but they were considered a… distraction from my duties.”

Cosette's hand squeezed his arm. It was easier saying all this without having to look her in the face. “When we came to your mother's court… I knew he was not a good man. But I knew nothing of his intentions, and I meant the queen no ill myself, so her magic did not affect me. And I intended no ill to her people or her nation, so her throne also passed me over. But I knew, all the same, that I made my reports, and your mother had given her love, to a villain. But I said nothing, because whatever he might have been, he did have my knight’s oath.”

They reached the main road, and care of footing was changed for speed. Cosette held on tightly as they rode, and Valjean raised his voice a little to be heard over the sound of hooves. Now that he had started, it seemed important to finish.

“Tholomyès told no one of his plans to take the kingdom, even those of whose loyalty he was certain,” he continued. “He couldn't, of course; if they colluded, the throne would divine their evil intentions the next time the queen lent it her power. So one morning I arose to my liege telling me that today we overthrow the queen and seize the land, and I didn't have time to think, to weigh my oath against his wickedness or to think about what I stood to lose. I only thought of you--you were only a baby, impossibly small and incredibly beautiful--and of your mother, noble and selfless and full of vicious fire.” He thought of that tiny child now, clinging to his back, and that new mother, locked away in her own castle. “And I broke my knight’s oath,” he said, “and joined the queen's forces.”

He felt Cosette squeeze him tighter, and covered her hand with his own for a moment as they rode. 

“You have suffered so much, Sir Jean,” she sighed, which was the last thing Valjean had expected to hear. “You are a hundred times more my father than the man in our castle is, and I'm proud to say it. You threw him out once, and now we’ll do it again together.”

Valjean patted her hand, finding himself suddenly unable to speak, and blinked away the tears in his eyes in the wind of their flight toward the castle.

They would do it together.


End file.
